Let Your Light Shine!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As October has begun, pumpkins and pumpkin spice items are everywhere. The slight chill of fall is in the air and just a few leaves are beginning to change color. So, I was thing about something that I had heard a while back about pumpkins and the Gospel.

Lots of people like to carve pumpkins and display them on their front porches, putting a light or a candle inside to make them glow. Now let’s compare that with what God does for us. God the Holy Spirit comes looking for us and chooses us to be His own, just like we might go to a pumpkin patch or a store and choose a pumpkin. This choosing by God was done before the creation of the world and is called predestination.

When God call us to faith and we are baptized into Christ, He starts going to work on our insides: our heart, our soul, our minds. He gradually starts to remove the icky stuff and the seeds. However, the seeds aren’t good seeds. They are seeds of evil, of sin, of anger, of hatred, or greed, of immorality, of envy, of doubt. The other icky stuff is all the sins that are already mucking up our hearts, souls, and minds.

He starts removing all of these things using the sacrifice of Christ to forgive our sins and His righteousness to make us clean. He does all of this because He loves and cares for us and want to save us from all of our sins.

In place of all of the icky stuff, the Holy Spirit placed the light of faith in our hearts, so that now we will glow with His love inside of us, and we will shine the light of that love and hope for others to see, so that they will want to know the source of it all. As His burning light of love shines in our hearts, we will also start to give off the pleasant aroma of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, so that others will be blessed through His presence in our lives.

So, the next time that you see a carved pumpkin with a candle inside, don’t think about the dark and sinister side of October. But instead, think about what God has done for you, is doing in you, and will do through you, and let your light shine for Him!

In Christ’s Love & Light,

Pastor Paul Pett